NY, NY may be on its way to closing-NY Post

Reported in the NY Post this morning. New York, New York is in big box office trouble. Read the link and comment:

https://nypost.com/2023/07/10/broadways-new-york-new-york-could-close-in-weeks-sources/

Both shows have high weekly operating costs. So if they're not selling at high capacity, they're more or less done. I thought Some Like It Hot could stick it out through the end of the year. New York, New York has never had much steam to boost their grosses or even good word-of-mouth.

Poor Stro another FLOP on Broadway!

This is not news although some details are interesting. Best case scenario is this making it to Labor Day. I also still stand by my belief that SLIH won't make it to January like some think.

As far as NYNY, I feel like Lin-Manuel has been pretty tepid in terms of promoting it. It's like he knew it wasn't that good and kept it at an arms-length despite being involved creatively.

jkcohen626 said: "The articles I need are not speculations on closing (we all knew NY, NY wasn't making it past labor day, right?), but an analysis of why on Earth producers keep throwing over $20 million at new shows (without stars) and how on Earth they're letting them cost this much to run. I know, I know, I know inflation, everything is more expensive. But a show that costs $1.2 Million a week to run still sounds absurdly expensive to me."

It's inevitable when the cost of everything is up. The writer's striker is a reminder that everyone is fighting for a fair wage, that will continue to drive up the cost of shows.

Part of the key also, I think, is actually making changes in previews. I saw one of the first previews and it was pretty painful. At times I had to keep myself from laughing out loud at the book: As my friend put it, it sounded like AI wrote a musical. Absolutely no substance, and of course way too many things going on.

If these had been addressed early on it may have helped the show promote itself, but as far as I can tell the script is still terrible, Colton's still doing his weird accent, and they have about a million plots going on to the point where no one cares about any of them. As sad as it is to see a show close, this one has been a long time coming.

pethian said: "I had heard about the break even for SLIH but the NYNY number is news to me and it is jaw-dropping...and head-scratching. I don't like hearing when any show fails, even those I didn't care for, but this news makes me especially sad because of the larger picture of how unimaginably daunting the finances of Broadway have become, especially for a big musical."

Exactly. The bigger picture is that economics of Broadway are becoming too unsustainable. It always has been tough, but this is madness.

WOW. $1.2 million per week break even.

What were they thinking?

I enjoyed this show but recognized the problems with it. Anna's character is incredibly unlikeable, you never really route for them as a couple because everyone around them seems cool with their relationship, and Colton is literally doing whatever he wants with this character, making him too weird for audiences to sincerely care what happens to him.

I don't read GOP gossip rags but no article was needed to tell me this show has been struggling.

quizking101 said: "BETTY22 said: "WOW. $1.2 million per week break even.

What were they thinking?"

They were thinking it had the potential to become a long-running hit with an armful of Tony Awards and an appeal that crosses all ages and cultural background.

Big Bucks...and they hit a Whammy."

That's the problem, so many producers (& creative teams for that matter) get so into their own bubble that they think they have a Tony winning hit that will easily gross over $1mil a week and they spend accordingly. That's such delusional thinking though and then they get stunned by bad reviews or poor box office. There's a reason a musical like Shucked is going to run longer because that team had no delusions that it was going to be a Hamilton-like smash out of the gate and their strategy and spending reflected that (I'm not saying Shucked is going to be a huge hit either but I'm sure it's not bleeding money like NYNY or SLIH).

Do tourists really want to come to NYC to see a show about how great NYC is?

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing the strategy is/was that they thought this could essentially become a staple of New York musicals that tourists would feed for years. They'd line up to see "New York, New York" as part of a trip the same way they'd go to a museum. They'd recognise the iconic 'New York, New York' song in particular and love it and tell their friends back home. They also probably thought LMM's name is a gold mine and overestimated his draw in this context. They probably thought it'd be critic and award proof because the title is so striking. It just didn't work out this way at all for some reason.

I must admit, I was hoping to catch this show so I too was hoping it would catch on. But alas.